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Disclaimer: I've played only one game of Apocalypse, at a special store event to showcase the game. So my knowledge of the system is limited. But from what I could see, it had a lot of potential. For example, it wasn't as IGOUGO as the current 40k, and therefore, the who-goes-first roll did not determine the outcome of the game. Its streamlined rules were designed for large games with lots and lots of models, but were also usable for normal-sized games (1000-2000 pts) when your time is limited.

But in my area at least, it never seemed to take off. And the GW webstore no longer sells Apoc stuff, apart from movement trays.

What went wrong?

I think the main problem is that it needed an entire boxed set with specialized dice, cards and markers, which is always a pricey and risky investment when you don't even know if your usual gaming buddies will be interested. If you could design a similar system that requires only the purchase of a rulebook, perhaps it would find success.

.

It had no releases or updates since release. No new releases, no buzz to keep folks excited.

It advertised itself as being apocalypse, for games between armies far larger than most people had.
It was also very directly competing with 40k, which has an extremely loyal fanbase.

I've never played Apoc, in any of its forms. I don't have any of the "humongous" models that the game tends to focus on.

I don't particularly enjoy 40k's flavour of giant models, aside from centrepiece type things. I'm still in an out-of-touch mode where one Knight is fun, 2 is a chore, and 3+ is not fun for me, so the whole premise of Apoc falls flat.

That said, I'd love to have a less cumbersome version of 40k to play. One with less gritty detail like Power Axe vs Power Sword sort of thing. I would probably enjoy Apoc, from what I've heard of it. But I wouldn't be able to get my garage-gaming buddies to buy into it, at all. So I'd be forking over the cash to take an unlikely gamble that my friends would try it (at all) and further that they would like it (enough to supercede playing regular 40k). It just doesn't seem like a probable scenario.

Too similar to 40K to attract non-40K players.

Different enough from 40K, that 40K players just kept playing the game they already knew.

Kill-Team at least has ease of entry in its favour.

I enjoyed it when I got some games - it works just as well with epic scale models as well.

Sadly its not had any support

It had a few problems:

1) Large units (the point of Apocalypse, basically) were fairly dull, and didn't have any particular special mechanics to them. They were just a big pile of hit points with powerful guns.

2) didn't try to enforce any kind of scale. they included units all the way down to individual Drukhari Sslyths and Ork Meks etc. it was silly, and those small units totally broke the game system down.

3) tying in with 2, they bit off more than they could chew trying to cram everything in all at once. This resulted in many units feeling very bland, and many weapons just...not making any sense mathmatically.

4) As others stated, no support. GW dropped apoc like a rock after it landed.

5) too steep buy-in. Nobodys going to buy a box of cardboard and cheap dice for 100$ to try out this new game.

Apoc has never been a game you buy into. It's a format that club or group buys into to then play once or twice a year - perhaps more if they've lots of free time and are really keen.


It's supposed to be just the fun end where you're putting 20-30-40K models down per side not a balanced regular game event.


I can appreciate there being less buzz around it than main studio games because, lets face it, its not made for a game you buy into; its for experienced players to have fun with.


I think that it is a bit of a mistake that GW doesn't push it a little more, but at the same time I can appreciate that its a niche within a niche product and not one marketed at their entire playerbase.


In the end it does have some interesting mechanics and I hope and expect we'll see a new 9th edition set released at some stage.

-Guardsman- wrote:
What went wrong?.

It was the latest GW attemp of trying to make people play Epic using 40k miniatures. That's all, really.

Playing Epic is easier, cheaper and more fun.

 Albertorius wrote:

-Guardsman- wrote:
What went wrong?.

It was the latest GW attemp of trying to make people play Epic using 40k miniatures. That's all, really.

Playing Epic is easier, cheaper and more fun.

I don't think GW was trying to "make" people do it, like I said its a game format that GW knows is very niche and is mostly aimed at clubs playing group games and long term fans who have huge collections who just one evening a year want to plunk it all down for some fun on the tabletop along with that Warlord/Warhound/Phantom that they bought from Forgeworld. GW aren't daft and know that having a game with 10K+points per side is never going to take off in a meaningful way.

Heck if they are smart they could delay Apoc for 9th edition being relaunched until after at least the UK is classed Corona safe (ergo when we can go back to normal socialising) as part of a big gaming celebration event.

Are you asking why people aren't regularly playing games that require multiple large army cases worth of models?

I think the OP is asking why Apoc didn't become popular / more active for people in the 2000 points range.

For myself, if GW had marketed the game as a "rules-light" or "less detailed" version of the game, I think I might have tried it out. While I enjoy the game as it currently stands, more so than I have in a long time, I would very much be interested in a more "unit vs unit" style ruleset instead of a model vs unit ruleset.

I beat this still-slightly-alive horse, but I detest the mechanical difference between Power Sword, Axe, and Maul. A flat "Enhanced 1-handed melee" profile would suit me just fine for basically all Power weapon style upgrades.

In appoc, for example, if a Power Weapon upgrade gave you a +1 to something, and a Power Fist gave you +2 to something for your unit's attack, I'd be cool with that.

It had (and still has) great potential, but have some pretty trivial problems and no support whatsoever... So it's not surprising that it didn't take off.

Also, the price is ridiculous and tied to a deck building mechanics that doesn't fit with the game and is almost explicitly there to force you buying the boxed set.

I still consider it has better rules than 40k

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Are you asking why people aren't regularly playing games that require multiple large army cases worth of models?

As I mentioned earlier, you can use it for smaller games when you have less time. E.g. if you have two hours to play a 2000-pt game.

It's an awesome system that was unfortunately let down by GW marketing. Remember when it came out and people were proclaiming that it was "the best way" to play 40k, even at 2000pts? The game came out, the people who played it loved it, but then not a peep.

The biggest problem IMHO is that Apocalypse has always just been an excuse for players to raise the bar for what's considered a "reasonable" collection. In previous editions, it was just a single book (and later a couple of expansions), so players had ready access to a system that told them that it was OK to have an absurd number of miniatures.

But this version of Apoc has vastly different army construction rules (or, at least, different consequences for army construction) and a pile of cards that everyone needs to read and understand, which is a lot to ask a herd of cats to do. And let's be honest: most games of Apoc would involve multiple players on each side, which was hard enough to organise even under old Apoc.

I would pare down the card system: release the cards as a separate pack, make the core Assets just 24 cards, and give each faction 6 cards. Each team just starts with the 24 core cards by default and can substitute up to 6 faction cards at the start of the game. I would then make it so each team draws an equal number of cards every turn, probably tapering down as the game goes on, rather than making it rely on the number of warlords. I'd also make some changes to the way psychic powers work.

This would lower the barrier to entry and reduce the number of pre-game decisions to make, both of which increases accessibility for casual 40k groups.

The second problem has been the lack of support, and I feel more or less the same way about Kill Team, though that at least has had a few expansions. KT and Apoc are just a way to get into 40k and a way to expand a 40k collection respectively, so the rules should keep up with core 40k. Every time a codex is released, come out with a small pamphlet for KT and another for Apoc that provides updated datasheets for that respective game. Hell, fluff it out with thematic missions or something and I'd be willing to even spend money on it. Then, at the end of the year you could release an Annual that simply collates these updates and makes some minor tweaks (e.g. to power levels).

Putting aside GW's usual marketing poppycock( "Combat Patrol", we are looking at you... ), Apocalypse never came across as anything but a tool for speeding up large games of 40K. Looked like GW was trying to assist tournaments by allowing them to fit in more large games where the dedicated were adamant to show off their 40K-scale tanks, flyers, titans and swarms - which does makes for an impressive sight and thus a memorable day.

Otherwise, I'm not seeing Apocalypse as a replacement for an epic system that is at home on the kitchen table as regular 40K.

Apoc was a better 40k then 40k marketed as 40k with massives 4-5k point armies. It should have just been marketed as 2k+ and built to run 2k+. Got updates with model releases so that the datasheets for all the new models were available.

Maybe ditch the deck building aspect for something where you have a pool of points to purchase cards that are available to your army at all times with limits on when and how often you can use them (tapping the cards when used or flipping them etc etc...).

Primarily it was a lack of support and bad marketing though.

I think that one of the main issues is that they didn't have a good handle on how they were going to monetize it. That and they just turned the basic unit of the game from a model to (generally) 5 models.


Without that, it had no distinct commercial identity and no incentive or method to keep it going.

Effectively they produced 1:1 recreations of current codex units, so there wasn't really a way to sell apocalypse codexes or ancillary components.



What I would have done is fundamentally changed the army comp. Rather than have tactical squads to buy, you buy an insertion detachment, which is composed of different units as a single unit entry.

The armies then get a collection of detachments that make up their army, and each has its own rules entry In a book for the army.

Or perhaps for the faction, so you have an
imperial book with detachments across all imperial forces, Eldar book with detachments across all factions etc.

You then have the capacity to sell books with the rules of each detachment , with expansions for new detachments etc.

The cards should be the equivalent command points.but you buy them at the beginning of the game to use during the game.

Things like psychic powers should just be weapons or rules under the psykers profile.

I would have also not started at 1 wound/attack as the base level for units in the game.

It just makes 5 models into 1 effectively, and lacks a little bit of representation - a little too abstract.

I would probably have started at 2/2 with a human or gretchin.

I would have also just left the attacks value off the unit and kept them in the weapon profile.

ie

Guard fireteam (5 models)
M WS BS W Ld Sv
6" 4+ 4+ 2 5 10+

Lasguns
Small Arms 24" 2A 8+ 10+ Rapid Fire
Close Combat
Weapons
Melee Melee 2A 8+ 10+ -


As part of the formations concept, where an army book has unique lists of formations with a single cost, I would have also done HQ units, with combinations of HQ, rather than each one as a distinct entry:

ie

Astra telepathica Auxillary (10 power)

Telepathica HQ squad
6" 3+ 3+ 4 7 10+

composed of - primaris psyker, navigator, commissar, priest, staff sergeant

Attacks
ranged - A2 24" 10+ 10+
melee - A4 10+ 10+

Abilities
Astral Divination: After this unit makes a Move action, select one friendly Light Astra
Militarum unit within 3" of it. Until the end of the turn, that unit does not suffer the penalty for
attacks made with ranged weapons that target obscured targets.

Aura of Discipline: Friendly Astra Militarum units can use this unit’s Leadership characteristic
instead of their own whilst they are within 6" of this unit.

War Hymns: Add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of friendly Adeptus Ministorum Infantry and
Astra Militarum Infantry units whilst they are making Fight actions whilst within 6" of any
friendly units with this ability


Wyrdvane psyker squad

Guard platoon

special weapon Squad


options: may take transport vehicles for 1 or more units at +x power each



Ad Mech Auxiliary (20 power)

Magos Command
Enginseer, Dominator, sicarian commander, heavy weapon servitors.

Servitor squads

leman russ tank squadron



etc


Only very few characters should be deployed by themselves, generally if they're monsters.


Even chapter masters should be, at this scale, part of a command squad with their abilities all rolled together.



YOu also have the opportunity to provide special rules for the whole detachment, unique to it, even if it has units found in other detachments.


ie a tank command detachment might have rerolls to hit and include leman russes, while an ad mech auxiliary would have the same tanks but no re-rolls - but it would be able to repair tanks and so on.


Basically, GW should have treated apocalypse as a separate game, rather than a version of 40k.

Lets just pray that Apoc was somehow a precursor for an upcoming epic ruleset.

Soulless wrote:
Lets just pray that Apoc was somehow a precursor for an upcoming epic ruleset.

There is no need to pray! Check out some of the other threads in this section, there is already a pretty thriving community keeping the original rulesets alive and making new ones. Lots of miniatures available too..

LOL I think the MTG cards ruined it. It had a pretty decent rules. Alternating detachments was cool. The cards ruined it though. Plus it was far less lethal than actual 40k which...is the opposite of how apoc should be.

Problem with apocalypse is the scale of the battle. People complained during 8th edition about standard armies being too large, and GW answered by raising up most of the points costs. The fanbase wanted to play with lesser models, not more.

That's why apocalypse isn't too popular, for most of the players bringing 3000+ points of stuff is actually scary and don't see anything interesting in a game that size. Carrying that many models is a pain and games can be too long.

The fact that GW didn't update the game could actually have been a good thing. If the game was decently balanced from the beginning frequent new releases would just be annoying, not exciting. Many 40k players stick with armies that don't receive any updates in years anyway.

Count me among those saying it is the size of game. 2500+ points is a LOT of models to deal with in a practical sense of transporting, deploying, moving, etc. It is an effort-intense game in an age where people are more or less too dam tired to want to play with any regularity.

I think its pretty clever, but has some problems. Namely, the core box was quite expensive for what was essentially a rulebook. It also just required a lot of fiddling with card decks to set up for a system that already demanded a lot of set up. It seems like a good system, but not one that quite gave players the sense of faction identity that gives them a reason to play it over standard 40k.

I think the boxset vs rulebook approach really hurt it. Previous editions were just an expansion to 40k, rather than a different game using the same models. People are very reluctant to try anything that's not 40k and Kill-Team only really got away with it because you just needed a softback, but in the long-term it never really took the gaming scene by storm either, people just used it as a novel distraction for a bit and then went back to 40k.

It's definitely one of those things your club brings out of the cupboard twice a year for a novelty day rather than something that's really committed to, but post-launch I can't really think of a time I saw it being played, at least in comparison to previous editions of Apocalypse wherein those events were relatively frequent.

I agree with those who said it was the best way to play 40k though. I'd hope in the development of 10th that GW take the best parts of it and make something great, but given the low sales I don't really see that happening.

I think its a marketing failure, there was zero follow-up to it. No follow on product, no follow on marketing promoting it as a playstyle, etc. It was pump and dumped out into the market and then not a peep about it was ever really said again. I think most simply people forget that it exists because theres no visibility or presence. Lack of visibiltiy and presence means less enticement to actually play it.

Contrast this to the other "side games" that GW is producing which get regular and recurring support on at least a quarterly basis. Theres enough presence and visibility there to remind you that it exists and tempt you into playing it. Otherwise releasing a game like this and never having any follow up (or even just an extended period without follow up) is a virtual death sentence, no matter how good it might be. Look at The Other Side from Wyrd - they fulfilled the kickstarter but like 2 or 3 years later they still haven't released anything new for the game. Theres nothing there to capture anyones interest or imagination versus the steady stream of other new products coming on to the market. As a result, people forget it exists, nobody plays it, and nobody buys it (which makes it easy to pick up stuff for on the cheap as its been reduced to a bargain basement brand). Dropfleet Commander had a similar issue in the months following the kickstarter release that virtually killed the game right after it released, it was only after Hawk Wargames sold itself to Tabletop Combat that it refound its footing and started releasing product against at a semi-steady pace that it started picking back up.

And I think part of it too was that it wasn't entirely clear to people what the product was. Most people associate Apocalypse as being "40k rules with a couple of additional big units and special superpowers you can use". This iteration of Apocalypse was a whole new ruleset which proved to be a big turnoff to people - but if they had advertised it in connection to the old Epic ruleset but at a larger scale they may have seen some more interest from people who loved that game, as well as people who were curious to see how that game played but didn't have easy access to 6mm minis.

-The pricepoint. The $100 box of cardboard was a stupid idea, especially price-gating the rulebook behind that $100 box of cardboard. 40k players may be price-insensitive but they know when they're getting gouged.

-The scale. The rules would have worked much better if there were 15mm or 6mm minis to play with; using full-size 40k minis made the whole thing prohibitively expensive, and slow and awkward to transport, pack/unpack, and have enough play space/terrain for. The same reasons people didn't play a lot of Apocalypse in older editions, really.

-Badly-assigned stats. Plenty of units, and some whole armies, got stats that made them just useless (Custodians, for instance), which irritated people.

-The cards. Insisting people actually buy the cards to build decks/shuffle/deal hands and gating a whole pile of interesting effects behind "did you draw the right 1/game card at the time you might want to use it?" was sort of like the concept of stratagems, but without any redeeming features.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


-The scale. The rules would have worked much better if there were 15mm or 6mm minis to play with; using full-size 40k minis made the whole thing prohibitively expensive, and slow and awkward to transport, pack/unpack, and have enough play space/terrain for. The same reasons people didn't play a lot of Apocalypse in older editions, really.

-Badly-assigned stats. Plenty of units, and some whole armies, got stats that made them just useless (Custodians, for instance), which irritated people.

-The cards. Insisting people actually buy the cards to build decks/shuffle/deal hands and gating a whole pile of interesting effects behind "did you draw the right 1/game card at the time you might want to use it?" was sort of like the concept of stratagems, but without any redeeming features.

I don't think any of these are issues that caused it to fail. I've read far more positive reviews of Apocalypse than I have negative ones. Those who played it seemed to overwhelmingly like it, though different strokes and all that. The bigger problem is that there generally wasn't much interest in it from the community at large leading up to its release, issues with card mechanics, bad stats, and scale are unlikely to have been the cause of that because for the most part those are things you wouldn't really know were issues until you actually played it. Mind you - the scale aspect *might* have been an issue for some who simply didn't have space to play games with such large collections of minis, but I think most people probably wouldn't be thinking in those terms until they actually sat down to try to play and realized what a chore it was to pack, transport, unpack, and set up 400-500 minis for each army, etc.

-Guardsman- wrote:
What went wrong?.

GW released a game system that required one person to purchase it and it came with everything you needed to play. Everything else was free.

Lesson learned!